Dana Bousquet, center, will take her husband David, son Patrick, and parents Daniel and Kathleen Griffin on an all-expenses paid vacation to the Grand Canyon after winning an online contest. (COURTESY)

Hooksett woman wins Grand Canyon trip

By BENJAMIN C. KLEINUnion Leader Correspondent

HOOKSETT — After enduring teasing from her youngest son for entering online instant win contests, Dana Bousquet of Hooksett will get the last laugh when she takes him to the Grand Canyon this spring after winning the grand prize in the Scotties Family Field Trip Sweepstakes.

.Bousquet said she would enter the contest daily through the Scotties’ Facebook page on her lunch break during the summer with the expectation that she would win a $50 gift card. Instead, she was picked from roughly 560,000 entries and won a trip for herself, her mother and father, husband and son to the Grand Canyon...“We are very much so looking forward to it. I think it gives a chance to create some memories and spend some time together,” Bousquet said.

She added that the family hasn’t been on a vacation in 10 years, when they went to Nantucket to visit family...“We have never been there and it is someplace I always wanted to go. It offers us a chance to see something different. We don’t usually take vacations and when we do it is to visit family,” she said.

Bousquet said that when she found out that she had won through a Fed Ex letter, her reaction wasn’t jumping around or yelling...“It was disbelief,” she said.

As an added benefit of winning the contest, Bousquet said that she will be able to give her 86-year-old father Daniel Griffin the experience of flying on a plane for the first time in his life...“He was in the Army, and he never went overseas. And I guess back then they took buses everywhere,” Bousquet said.

Bousquet, who has worked in the Loudon School District as a speech pathologist for 17 years and lived in New Hampshire for 26 years, said she was given a choice of five destinations. The East Coast locations like New York and Florida are places she has already been, making the Grand Canyon the easy selection...“Always helping others, little did she know she would be the one receiving help, packing her bags, then flying across the country for some much needed family time,” the press release announcing Bousquet as the winner said...Bousquet said that along with creating family memories, she is excited for some of the activities planned during the trip, like a helicopter, train and jeep tour of the canyon.

“I have never been in a helicopter before,” she said...bklein@newstote.com..